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I seem to be missing where and when this was said, but UK industry site MCV has Sega boss John Clark claiming that the PC market is better than most people seem inclined to report. And Sega should know, because they’re the UK’s second biggest PC publisher thanks to their ownership of Total Warists, The Creative Assembly. “The PC market is third in terms of its year-on-year performance with a decline of 26 per cent, but this doesn’t really reflect the full picture,” said Clark. “The PC digital download business is now a viable sector but somewhat invisible as it’s not yet covered by Chart-Track. The PC market overall is actually performing much better than is currently reported and remains a vital and strong sector to be involved in.”

PC market is very strong and vital but sometimes a little too hard and intimidating for some publishers to square up to and make sure that the releases come out to everyones satisfaction. For instance, SEGA should do a PC version of After Burner Climax. I have a big old joystick that rarely comes out these days that could use some action.

There are still lots of good deals at retail, and sometimes retail packages actually have less constraining DRM than their digital equivalents (Anno 1404 and Risen spring to mind). It’s always good to consider all your options, sometimes it’s best to get something via DD and sometimes it’s best to get a box.

“B+M shops wont carry your product if you don’t make it cheaper in stores than online.

Most places, you’d tell ‘em to fuck off. Gamestop or whatever, and you have to listen.”

More precisely, I’d assume retailers get very stroppy if you don’t sell your own game for your own RRP. On the other hand, retailers reserve the right to sell under RRP (and pretty much always do… play.com counts as a “bricks & mortar” store)

non-uk-ians: RRP is Reccomended Retail Price, the price the publisher thinks people should charge for the game… it’s main purpose is so places can say “£5 off” or similar when they take your preorder.

Yeah, Amazon, Play and the like remain the cheapest places to buy games – for me at least. I very rarely buy ‘mainstream’ titles via DD, much as I adore its socks off, because the prices are simply not competitive. They usually start at about £5 more than many retailers, then take a very, very long time to sink in price; if at all. There are exceptions, granted, but my point remains.

I just started using Steam, and it’s a great service. Any games I’m buying will be from there from now on. I won’t buy games at EB or wherever unless they’re like oddball older games that are hard to get/not available on Steam.

I think one of the most important features of Steamworks is also one of the most important reasons for a publisher to embrace Steam, at least if they’re doing retail. The great thing is is that a part of Steamworks is the ability to plug one’s key into Steam and download the game from Steam at any point, so regardless of what happens to physical media one always has Steam as a backup. That’s a great thing.

“If they really consider the digital download business viable, they should drop Steamworks immediately and choose Impulse Reactor as soon as it comes out.

Why limit yourselves to Steam when there are other dd channels that would otherwise sell your games, expanding your market, SEGA?”

I can totally see Steam, D2D, Gamersgate et al pushing games which require Impulse installed. I mean it’s not like Impulse, D2D, Gamersgate et al refused to sell games which require Steam installed to play did they?

“I think one of the most important features of Steamworks is also one of the most important reasons for a publisher to embrace Steam, at least if they’re doing retail. The great thing is is that a part of Steamworks is the ability to plug one’s key into Steam and download the game from Steam at any point, so regardless of what happens to physical media one always has Steam as a backup. That’s a great thing.”

Well, that’s good for the consumer (thee and me), but why would a publisher give a fsck about that? They got the money for the shiny disc thingy, their job is done, you’re on your own now, mate.

Maybe the logic is that happy customers are repeat customers and also tell everyone else about how great your games / shops / etc are. Conversely there is only so long you can get money out of people you keep annoying unless you have something really unique or you can find a way of replacing old customers with new ones (churn via marketing?).

“The PC digital download business is now a viable sector but somewhat invisible as it’s not yet covered by Chart-Track. The PC market overall is actually performing much better than is currently reported and remains a vital and strong sector to be involved in.” ”

It might bolster your point if you quantified “viable”, Sega. Snark aside, the continuing lack of transparency over the volume of download sales worries me a lot. If the numbers really were great, the publishers would be shouting it from the rooftops, right? The only time we ever get hard numbers are for indie titles and Stardock, which has fairly modest sales ambitions for its titles. Does Valve lock big publishers into an NDA on its numbers, or is there something else going on?

Why wouldn’t a publisher want the sales known, when its happy for the retail numbers to be known? Valve on the other hand might well rather not advertise the absolute fucking mountains of cash they must be raking in, lest it hurt their indie image, and/or encourage competition from big boys like amazon.

Publishers wouldn’t want the numbers known so they can continue to bitch relentlessly about piracy destroying civilization and spreading herpies. There, answered my own question. Thread closed.

Oh yeah, another point. Most of these big publishers are listed companies. Don’t shareholders have a right to know this sort of information? Maybe not download platform by download platform, but certainly overall downloads. Seems pretty damn material to me, especially given the difference in profit margin.

It’d be great if Valve would work with NPD, ChartTrack and all the other sales tracking systems and provide sales data. I’m pretty sure that PC games would feature much higher in the charts if they did. We could finally put paid to the ‘PC games are dying’ comments that console owners keep shouting.

It always strikes me as ironic too that high street retailers, having done their best to kill off PC gaming by relegating them to the back of the shop and only stocking a few titles (because they can’t sell them second hand, where the console profit is made), still have the power to dictate to the digital distribution services about price and availablility.

For example MW2 was delayed on Steam so that retail could get some sales, and Metro 2033 isn’t available directly from Steam in the UK, only retail, even though it’s a Steamworks game!

Sorry, but PC joypads have _always_ been terrible. I don’t have the dongle to use my 360 pads with my PC yet, but that’s only because I’ve already got converters for my DualShocks and Hori Arcade Sticks.

It’s obvious, really – the likes of Logitech just aren’t catering for as big a market as a console vendor, so can’t provide the same kind of design and manufacturing nous for anything like the same price.

I was talking sticks and wheels, not pads. It stands to reason that console pads are better because they have a much larger market — if you can simply adapt a massively-researched pad for PC use, why bother with anything else?

Mostly, I was lamenting the time when a game like Dirt 2 would be screaming for you to use a wheel, instead of being so clearly designed with a pad in mind.

@Vinraith: I may not be whom you’re asking, but I’m going to answer anyway. I got myself a Mayflash Super Dual Box Pro from Play-Asia, it has served me well over the years. The only issues I had with it is the rumble going insane in ePSXe seemingly randomly, but everything else works perfectly fine.

I still order my games retail, i don’t like the thought of someone else having my game. Plus, you have to have steam to play your games, how annoying is that? Now i just burn my games to my external and don’t have to hunt for the CD anymore

@battles_atlas , Red Fred
Go ahead and tell me that I’m wrong. I DARE YOU. Steam exclusivity is unnecessary, dangerous, not to mention downright STUPID from both customers’ and publishers’ perspective.
You know this, I know this, everyone knows this.
That’s why as soon as an alternative like Impulse Reactor shows up, Steamworks should finally be dropped.
I don’t hate Steam, I really don’t – I often buy some digital-only games there. But I’ve said before that if I get a game from a store or Direct2Drive, I shouldn’t have to install a third-party client to be able to play it.

“Truth is we did look at online support, be it GFW or some other method,” Lycett said. “When we looked into the cost vs the projected sales, the two didn’t add up. So as a result the feature wasn’t added to the game. One of the main reasons is that on PC people will steal it rather than buy it.”

@battles_atlas, Red Fred
Go ahead and tell me that I’m wrong. I DARE YOU. Steam exclusivity is unnecessary, dangerous, not to mention downright STUPID from both customers’ and publishers’ perspective.
You know this, I know this, everyone knows this.
That’s why as soon as an alternative like Impulse Reactor shows up, Steamworks should finally be dropped.
I don’t hate Steam, I really don’t – I often buy some digital-only games there. But I’ve said before that if I get a game from a store or Direct2Drive, I shouldn’t have to install a third-party client to be able to play it.

TeeJay said:
@ Teachable Moment
Maybe the logic is that happy customers are repeat customers and also tell everyone else about how great your games / shops / etc are. Conversely there is only so long you can get money out of people you keep annoying unless you have something really unique or you can find a way of replacing old customers with new ones (churn via marketing?).

I made exactly this point today regarding the Assassin’s Creed DRM. One lost customer due to overbearing DRM is a greater loss than preventing a thousand pirated copies, because it’s unlikely that any of those pirates would have bought your game, but the customer WAS going to buy your game.
If your game experience is good, then customers will evangalise about it to their friends and buy more of your stuff. If you annoy them with stupid restrictions, bad customer service, or a poor product they’re going to complain about it instead and never buy from you again.